Jace Hall Show Ep. 2

[ArcherofAiur]

ROFL!


*Dustin Browder pointing to the many empty beer bottles*
"This is how Starcraft 1 was balanced"


First actual funny thing on the show

[Gifted]

While this episode shows further his intended joke storyline for Blizzard throughout Season 3, there is something that is worthwhile to mention regarding this story.

During all the random shinanigans, it's not unheard of for this series to assist companies in basic exclusive releases. Just like in Episode two where the Blizzard content is obvious sketch comedy, the Monk Female Art is exclusive.

For that reason, even if next week's episode doesn't have anything "official" in it, I wouldn't be surprised to have something to talk about, such as a new battle.net screen or whatnot. Who knows, the fact that it's aligned in the same week as the conference call is something that Blizzard is aware of I suspect.

Ultimately, this doesn't change anything but merely shows some of my own speculation... It's still interesting to see how it will be on that specific episode. It'll be interesting to see how next week as a whole goes, whether the community loves it or hates it.

[Gifted]

Hehe, filmed 06/23/09, so next week we might see 7 month old humor shots from sc2. I wonder how many people are actually working on sc2 and not just part time when they got time off from WoW dev team. Probably like 3? maybe 4

I mean lets face it, 1000 days for any hard working team is a beta/ship long ago. They probably need a big increase in staff, cuz right now its probably two people playing the game and one making the game look better, to give apperance of hard work, while the two others try to balance the game, waiting for the WoW crew to come back to help them with the more serious stuff.

Im not saying its not hard to make the game, im not saying they should cut back on detail and balance, but im saying they are SLOW in making the game, so they should have increased staff to make things speed up a lot, obv things would go faster with a bigger dev crew, working only on sc2.

2 things to consider.

1. They have a fully functioning staff that's more than your exaggerated 2-4 person squad. Whether it's an interesting picture to paint in the mind, we should keep reality in scope.

2. While it may be more efficient in terms of money, the quality of their games are on a level that's nearly on their own sometimes. Imagine if the game hit beta 1.5-2 years ago... how much the game would have missed out in terms of polish would have been staggering. That's not to include the information that's not public, such as the potential setbacks that we're not privy to understand/know.

[GGTeMpLaR]

/yawn

if they don't announce anything on wednesday then I might turn to the next episode in desperation, but otherwise I'm not really on the edge of my seat or anything

the show has some funny moments but I don't suspect anything special will happen unless the conference call mentions something which would lead one to believe so

conference call should be the day everyone is looking forward to

[Alterran]

2 things to consider.

1. They have a fully functioning staff that's more than your exaggerated 2-4 person squad. Whether it's an interesting picture to paint in the mind, we should keep reality in scope.

2. While it may be more efficient in terms of money, the quality of their games are on a level that's nearly on their own sometimes. Imagine if the game hit beta 1.5-2 years ago... how much the game would have missed out in terms of polish would have been staggering. That's not to include the information that's not public, such as the potential setbacks that we're not privy to understand/know.

Like i said, im well aware they are in a class of their own when it comes to quality of the games. BUT my point was that they are slow in making them, and you cant argue that a bigger staff would make a quicker development.

And i dont really know if the development team is really bigger than 4 people dedicated only to working with starcraft 2, they have previously said they had to pull some people away to work on world of warcraft. Ofc, if you include the sound department and such its probably a lot more, but in my understanding movie/sound and other stuff are shared among the teams.

[SpikeVorador]

oh my... she really eat a mouse G_G

[rcp181]

Like i said, im well aware they are in a class of their own when it comes to quality of the games. BUT my point was that they are slow in making them, and you cant argue that a bigger staff would make a quicker development.

And i dont really know if the development team is really bigger than 4 people dedicated only to working with starcraft 2, they have previously said they had to pull some people away to work on world of warcraft. Ofc, if you include the sound department and such its probably a lot more, but in my understanding movie/sound and other stuff are shared among the teams.

If you want quality you're going to have to wait longer. It's as simple as that.

There is a point of diminishing returns in terms of larger staff. Blizzard can't just throw more and more developers at a game and have it come out exponentially faster while still maintaining the same quality. Do you think Blizzard likes having their games take 6 years to develop? If they knew of a feasible way to churn out the same games in 2-4 years I'm sure they would do it. Obviously it's not as simple as throwing more people at a project.

Now Blizzard has a lot more developers than they used to, but instead they use it to work on more projects at once.

Btw, both the SC2 and Diablo teams have about 60 members each. AFAIK the only shared team is cinematics.

[Alterran]

If you want quality you're going to have to wait longer. It's as simple as that.

There is a point of diminishing returns in terms of larger staff. Blizzard can't just throw more and more developers at a game and have it come out exponentially faster while still maintaining the same quality. Do you think Blizzard likes having their games take 6 years to develop? If they knew of a feasible way to churn out the same games in 2-4 years I'm sure they would do it. Obviously it's not as simple as throwing more people at a project.

Now Blizzard has a lot more developers than they used to, but instead they use it to work on more projects at once.

Btw, both the SC2 and Diablo teams have about 60 members each. AFAIK the only shared team is cinematics.

The sound department is shared...?
You are telling me 60 people have been working only on starcraft 2 for over three years? What are we smoking today? :O are you really saying 120 people are working on sc2+d3 and nothing else? 120 people?

Why would there be diminishing returns in a effective company? They are not a highschool class working on making a game here, they are all professionals with the education and skill to do their jobs, you dont think they got a clue on how to delegate work or what?

I would say at most 20 people are working on starcraft 2, probably less. Not counting the people that have already been confirmed to jump teams. If its 60 people im very convinced 40 of them are hired to make the tank bob...

Ofc, this is me assuming they all work full time, not part-time.

[rcp181]

I would say at most 20 people are working on starcraft 2, probably less.

Wow, and you think I'm the one smoking? I thought you were making a joke about hardly anyone working on Starcraft 2, but all I can do is LOL if you seriously think the SC2 team is 20 people or less.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html...=2&sid=3000#24 There's Bashiok saying they have about 70 people working on Diablo 3.

But really having a bigger or smaller number with no frame of reference as to the types and amounts of content being developed is sort of meaningless. It's more important what's being worked on, who each person is, their abilities, and the end result than just a sum of the bodies assigned to a team.

Also a good quote from him!

[Sydarm]

I do think Gifted is on the right track.

The SC2 beta release of Jace Hall will coincide with the actual release of beta and the conference call. as he said, it's very common to promote releases of things through stuff like this.